10 Reasons I Didn’t Shower Today

Being a parent is awesome. I love every bit of it, I really do. However, anyone who is a busy parent knows that having kids, especially a baby or toddler, means that you have to plan and execute your
day with precision and efficiency. It
means that sometimes, if there is an abnormally heavy schedule on a particular
day, you have to go into serious schedule triage. And if you can’t
get your act together, things that are supposed to happen just don’t happen (even basic things, like taking a shower). Now, I’m not a gross person, I want to take a
shower just as much as the next person. It’s just that I’m still learning to master that whole time-management
thing with children. Here are 10 reasons
why I didn’t get a shower in today.

We’d just gotten home from being away for a week. The only things in the fridge still good to
eat were two Kit-Kats, a jar of mayo, celery and a half-eaten package of hot
dogs. Part of me wanted to get into Iron
Chef mode and make some sort of calzone, but then the other part of me didn’t want
to give my kids severe food poisoning. So, instead of using the time before the kids woke to shower and get
ready, I brushed my teeth, pulled my hair up and headed to the grocery store
for some unexpired, chunk-free milk and other groceries.

2. I want that sexy, beach hair look.

When you have kids, you do everything you can to preserve a
good hair day. And you do your best to
keep that good hair day into tomorrow and maybe even the next day. Because when you have kids, styling your hair
doesn’t happen every day. And I had a
good hair day, dammit! (Yes, I DO know
about shower caps.)

3. I didn’t want the sound of the shower to wake
the baby.

As pathetic and gross as this makes me sound, it’s
true. Sometimes babies sleep like logs,
other times, they wake at the sound of your neighbor spreading jam onto his
scone. She was in one of those fitful
sleep moods today, and I was not going to risk waking her from her nap just to
cleanse myself. And yes, I’m talking
about showering at noon.

4. I needed to clean instead.

I was going to shower while my daughter took her mid-morning
nap, but I chose to clean out the fridge and then clean the bathrooms instead. Believe me, this is not my ideal way to spend
those two precious hours of peace, but when you swear you’ve just seen
something try to escape and crawl out of the fridge, and there is a dust bunny
rave happening in the living room, you have to act right away.

Know that “showering” is just a euphemism for “any task that was effortless to complete before you had kids.”

5. I was up until 5 a.m. and chose to sleep in a
little instead of shower.

Wouldn’t you? Be
honest.

6. Just when I was about to get in the shower,
which was already running, the doorbell rang.

Turns out it was just the FedEx guy, who left the package and
bounced. But by the time I got the
package in and opened it, and after I tried on the contents of that package and
contemplated for 15 minutes why I thought the contents of that package looked so
good on that model online at 3 a.m., that sweet, sweet shower time was gone.

7. There was what looked like poop in the shower.

I couldn’t confirm what it was, so I just treated it like
poop. After cleaning, disinfecting and "ew-gross"-ing for an hour, I realized that it was some dried seaweed snack that
had made its way into the shower and gotten wet and soggy. Or at least, I’m 70 percent sure that’s what it
was. In any case, after all that, there
was no time left for me to shower before the baby woke up from her afternoon
nap.

8. I wiped with baby wipes midday.

I considered it a triumph in multitasking: wiping the grape
juice off my neck and arms with baby wipes while driving to my daughter’s
doctor appointment.

9. I spent the three golden hours after my daughter
went to sleep and before my usual bedtime working on my 12-year-old’s tri-fold
poster outlining medical contributions from Wales.

And repeatedly asking, “Why
the hell are you having to do a project about medical contributions from
Wales?”

10. I plan to go to the gym tomorrow, I swear.

As disgusting as that sounds, when both kids are asleep and
you have found that sweet spot on the couch and are contemplating just sleeping
there, you reason and think things like, “Why shower today when
I’m just going to get sweaty in the morning? That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?”

So nope, I didn’t shower today. Judge me all you want. It’s just how things happened to go today. When you have young children, sometimes you
don’t get it all in. And know that “showering”
is just a euphemism for “any task that was effortless to complete before you
had kids.” I’ll get ‘em tomorrow,
tiger. I hope.